D&D 5E Beholder hunting: nasty counter-tactics to Darkness?

[KarinsDad]

Clearly you're not following the argument. The argument presented was:

"It undermines most of beholder lore, which relies on them selectively using specific eye rays for effects like boring out lairs, charming minions, operating levers etc. In fact the beholder write-up specifically mentions digging with disintegrate."

In short:

I. The MM lore specifically says they dig out lairs, charm minions, etc.
II. Random eye-rays prevent them from doing any of that.
III. Ergo, random eye-rays need to go.

I just pointed out that (II) doesn't hold.

II holds just fine. Beholders are prevented from doing what they want to do when they want to do it and have to wait in 5E for pure chance to allow them. The logic is sound, it's your desire to keep a dumb new rule in 5E that prevents you from removing it. But that's your business at your table. As many posters have posted here, random eye rays are a stupid new invention that Beholder Lore never had in the past.

Eye Rays (Su): Each of a beholder's small eyes can produce a magical ray once per round as a free action. During a single round, the beholder can only aim three eye rays at targets in any one 90-degree arc (up, forward, backward, left, right, or down.) The remaining eyes must aim at targets in other arcs, or not at all. A beholder can tilt and pan its body each round to change which rays it can bring to bear in any given arc.

Beholders were always able to control their eyestalks. In every edition of the game. You like this new rule, fine. Use it. But don 't try to justify it as "beholder lore". It is nothing of the sort. Beholders were never handcuffed like this.

In fact, Beholders were never handcuffed to only three eyestalk attacks per round. That's REALLY restrictive. 5E Beholders are wimps compared to earlier versions.


Getting back on topic, why not just have the Beholders bust holes through the ship and retreat? Darkness has a limited duration. Let the enemies use up their Darkness spells and then kick their butts at a place and time of the Beholders' choosing? Why stay and fight? Why come up with special tactics for an unexpected foe when the Beholder can just wait them out? Beholders are intelligent, they do not need to have bizarre special mirror or sheet or other tactics prepared ahead of time for Darkness wielding foes. They just need to attack their foes when they are not ready for it.

Darkness foe invades. Beholder flees and sets up ambush. If it cannot flee, it uses its antimagic ray to prevent the nasty stuff from hitting it until it gets the opportunity to disintegrate a hole through the ship and flee. No muss. No fuss. No "I went to the forums and had 50 other people scratch their heads trying to come up with cool ideas on how my wimpy beholders were going to overcome a simple level 2 Darkness spell". The fact that you came here looking for help (and you got very few solid non-way out in left field suggestions on how to do this) should suggest to you that there are serious design flaws in the 5E beholder, but play them as written if you want.


Btw, the easiest way for Beholders to attack foes is via intersecting tunnels that run in all directions in a Beholder lair. In a dark lair, it is easy to have a 3D mazie of tunnels that Beholders can zip around in, but the vast majority of other creatures which cannot hover and change direction easily in flight (or without flight) cannot. Hit and run tactics where foes never see them coming and by the time they react, the Beholder is already gone (i.e. move, attack, move). Beholders should rarely fight in a straight up fight.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

In fact, Beholders were never handcuffed to only three eyestalk attacks per round. That's REALLY restrictive. 5E Beholders are wimps compared to earlier versions.

Beholders have 6 eye beams per round. Legendary actions. .

 

[iserith]

Question to those posters who don't like random eye rays:

Which six rays are you going to have the beholder choose to use most of the time?

 

[Celtavian]

Question to those posters who don't like random eye rays:

Which six rays are you going to have the beholder choose to use most of the time?

Whichever rays are appropriate for it to do what it needs to do, same as a player with similar powers would do. I don't feel a beholder using random eye rays would be accomplishing the goals of play. It can't have much fun if it isn't doing its job challenging the PCs.

 

[Celtavian]

Hmm... another thought: Darkness is blocked if its source is completely covered. If you use telekinesis to throw a huge cloth at the darkness and completely cover the bearer, can you then target a creature under a big sheet? Seems like you must be able to, or beholders would also be vulnerable to Halloween ghost costumes

And clearly these intelligent creatures would know of their weakness and have prepared their lairs and ships with plentiful giant cloths to defeat the Darkness spell. This is, of course, getting ridiculous, but that's often what happens if you take RAW to its logical conclusions.

I imagine with 24 beholders, one might roll Telekinesis at the right time on the random eye ray roll.

 

[iserith]

Whichever rays are appropriate for it to do what it needs to do, same as a player with similar powers would do. I don't feel a beholder using random eye rays would be accomplishing the goals of play. It can't have much fun if it isn't doing its job challenging the PCs.

The beholder doesn't have fun anyway. It doesn't exist.

I imagine some players might try to prepare for a beholder fighter by taking precautions against its most powerful effects which they may assume (correctly in most cases) the DM will roll out against them first. If the eye rays are random, there's no guarantee that will be the case and leaves the players guessing.

I don't argue against changing the beholder, but random eye rays makes it a little less predictable.

 

[Celtavian]

The beholder doesn't have fun anyway. It doesn't exist.

I imagine some players might try to prepare for a beholder fighter by taking precautions against its most powerful effects which they may assume (correctly in most cases) the DM will roll out against them first. If the eye rays are random, there's no guarantee that will be the case and leaves the players guessing.

I don't argue against changing the beholder, but random eye rays makes it a little less predictable.

Less predictable for the players a good thing, less predictable by the beholder itself not so much. A creature that can't use its powers in an optimal fashion is weaker than one that can. That's why players are so much more dangerous than monsters. They have a large number of abilities and can use them in a very predictable, coordinated fashion.

 

[MG.0]

I imagine some players might try to prepare for a beholder fighter by taking precautions against its most powerful effects which they may assume (correctly in most cases) the DM will roll out against them first. If the eye rays are random, there's no guarantee that will be the case and leaves the players guessing. I don't argue against changing the beholder, but random eye rays makes it a little less predictable.

Playing a beholder intelligently should make it less predictable too. They should be able to do the unexpected and catch players off guard. They're supposed to be very smart and very dangerous. I play them that way, anyway.

Someone mentioned the facing issue from earlier editions being the reason for the random eye rays and I believe that. I wouldn't bring back the facing stuff though. It's too fiddly and if you aren't using miniatures (I don't) then it's pretty meaningless. I think it is no stretch to say their eye stalks can point any way they like. It makes them less predictable and just that much more dangerous anyway, which is a good thing.

 

[FormerlyHemlock]

Less predictable for the players a good thing, less predictable by the beholder itself not so much. A creature that can't use its powers in an optimal fashion is weaker than one that can. That's why players are so much more dangerous than monsters. They have a large number of abilities and can use them in a very predictable, coordinated fashion.

A universe filled with monsters and NPCs all using "optimal" strategies is boring and unrealistic. Try making your players declare actions in only six seconds and see how optimal their tactics are. The fact that players get to think in bullet time is a major advantage for the PCs.

Another example: if the giff in the OP were being played "optimally" they would be using axes and javelins instead of arquebuses, and they would double or triple their DPR--but neither they nor the beholders are "optimal". Giff like guns and big explosions, that's just how they are. It's been part of their lore from day 1.

A large part of the charm of D&D is a world which exists as itself and not as a tactical battlecomputer simulation.

IMHO, YMMV, etc.

 

[Celtavian]

A universe filled with monsters and NPCs all using "optimal" strategies is boring and unrealistic. Try making your players declare actions in only six seconds and see how optimal their tactics are. The fact that players get to think in bullet time is a major advantage for the PCs.

Another example: if the giff in the OP were being played "optimally" they would be using axes and javelins instead of arquebuses, and they would double or triple their DPR--but neither they nor the beholders are "optimal". Giff like guns and big explosions, that's just how they are. It's been part of their lore from day 1.

A large part of the charm of D&D is a world which exists as itself and not as a tactical battlecomputer simulation.

IMHO, YMMV, etc.

I play suboptimal when it is appropriate for the creature. It isn't appropriate for beholders which in most editions of D&D are very calculating creatures.

I find tactical, optimized play interesting. It doesn't bore me as it seems to bore you. That's why I as a DM take playing the monsters in an optimal fashion intent on winning interesting. As a DM it is difficult to try to challenge five players with a vast array of abilities with a single monster. Being able to do that as a DM makes the game fun. If I had to run monsters in some random fashion that allowed the PCs to steamroll them would bore me.

A D&D world which exists as itself does not need monsters that act in a foolish fashion that would eliminate their chances of survival. In real life creatures that act in a foolish, suboptimal fashion die. Creatures that learn to do things in an optimal fashion live. I don't see why it would be any different in a realistic world.

Giffs that love guns and big explosions, but can't use them in an optimal fashion wouldn't last long in a competitive world with so many races. So the realism card doesn't hold much water to me. Cultures and races/creatures that survive are those that learn to achieve victory by optimizing whatever advantages they happen to have. That's the kind of world that seems realistic to me. I like to apply human thinking to creatures and humans are always looking for advantages to achieve victory over competing species. I assume species that have survived a long time do the same.